


the things we do

by Morning66



Category: Ben 10 Series
Genre: Cheating, Future Fic, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:13:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28716324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morning66/pseuds/Morning66
Summary: Then, their eyes met and Ben had known that this, whatever this was, was inevitable. It had sent a shiver down his spine, fear and excitement, and Ben had hated himself for a second, watching Kai take Kevin’s coat and hang it on the wrack, making small talk.
Relationships: Kevin Levin/Ben Tennyson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	the things we do

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends!! =D
> 
> This probably could have been rated T, but I just wanted to be safe. I hope you like it!
> 
> Warnings: Swearing, Sexual Stuff, Marital Infidelity

They fuck in Kevin’s hotel room.

It’s a nice hotel, one of the ones with the big interior atriums with plants and free lemon-lime water and cookies, balconies looking down all the way to the floor, ten stories below. It reminds Ben of the ones he and Gwen used to try and convince Grandpa Max to stay at, ten years old and sick and tired of being kept in a hot RV.

And so they have sex, on the clean sheets that some maid probably laid out this morning, white and pure and immaculate and the exact opposite of childhood enemies turned teenage best friends having an elicit hookup.

Ben knew it was going to happen, knew yesterday when Kevin showed up for Kenny’s tenth birthday, smelling of must and dirt and alien sweat and carrying a plastic takeout bag with a yellow smiley face.

“Kevin!” Kenny had called, running towards him.

“Uncle Kevin,” Kai had said, finishing up the dinner dishes. “Call him uncle, Kenny.”

Kevin had laughed and given Ben and Kenny an eye roll, then wrapped an arm around Kenny. “Here’s your present, kid. Can’t open it ‘til tomorrow, though.”

Kenny grinned and laughed and ran off, the bag clutched in his fist. “Say thank you!” Kai had called, but Kenny hadn’t listened.

“You didn’t have to come,” Ben had said and Kevin had given him a noogie like Ben was still sixteen.

Kevin had laughed, rough and dark, the way his real laugh always was. “I was in the area, Tennyson.”

Then their eyes met and Ben had known that this, whatever this was, was inevitable. It had sent a shiver down his spine, fear and excitement, and Ben had hated himself for a second, watching Kai take Kevin’s coat and hang it on the wrack, making small talk.

Now, three hours later and ostensibly on a guy’s night out, lying in a dark room that smells like a combination of sex and lavender laundry detergent, he can feel panic and disgust setting in, twisting together in his gut and burrowing outward like some parasitic worm.

Fuck, they shouldn’t have done that. They shouldn’t do this at all.

Here’s the thing: Ben’s a hero, but that doesn’t mean he’s a good person. There’s this belief, this idealistic idea held by people who’ve never held the fate of the world in their hands, that those two things always go together, but they don’t. In fact, Ben has a sneaking suspicion that they're often mutually exclusive.

So no, it’s not like he thinks he’s some saint, but that doesn’t mean he can cheat on his wife, on the mother of his son, and not feel like throwing up every organ in his body onto the beige carpet.

“Fuck, Tennyson,” Kevin says, voice hoarse and if they hadn’t just had sex, it would go right to his dick.

“Yeah,” Ben echos.

He could say that this will never happen again, that this is the last time. He’d said that at eighteen, the first time it happened in Kevin’s shitty apartment a mile off of Friedkin’s campus, back before he was with Kai and when Kevin was still with Gwen. He’d said it for years afterward, but he’s thirty now and figures he should be man enough to acknowledge that, yes, it most certainly will happen as long as neither of them get taken out on a Plumber mission.

He’s not sure why it happens. Kevin’s always had a way with women— must be the bad boy look he’s cultivated—and he has Kai. Maybe he’s not the straightest guy in the world, maybe he realized in retrospect he had a thing for Rook at sixteen, but he likes women fine. It’s just, there’s always been something between him and Kevin, some powerful string connecting them, even when they were boys in that arcade, two kids from two different worlds. Destined to be friends and maybe more, he supposes.

As Ben lays in bed, staring up at the popcorn ceiling, he hears Kevin’s breathing even out. Kevin’ always good at sleeping anywhere courtesy of those years in the Null Void.

Finally, he reaches for his phone, feels for it in the dark on the night table, types out a text to Kai.

gonna stay over Kevs don’t wanna drive 

be home in morning 

sorry love u

He stares at it for a moment after he sends it, then shuts his phone down all the way. He doesn’t want to see Kai’s response. Doesn’t want to see if she’s mad, or worse, understanding.

She’ll think they went out and got drunk, two old friends catching up. Of course she will. He’s never given her any indication to think anything else, the bastard that he is.

He loves her. He does. They were nineteen when they started dating, tired of fighting fate, and twenty when she got pregnant. And sure it had been a shotgun wedding, Kenny on their minds the whole time because how could you forget meeting your teenage son, but that didn’t mean he didn’t love her.

Ben sighs and turns over.

In sleep, Kevin looks young, face not quite so wrinkled and haggard, closed eyes not so jaded. He’s got a scar up above his left eye from a fight with Animo a decade ago and staring at it, Ben wants to touch it, wants to maybe press his lips against it.

Instead, he bumps their legs together under the blankets.

Ben sighs and closes his eyes, thinks of Kai alone in their bed, Kenny who’ll be ten tomorrow at half past two in the afternoon and isn’t that a thought.

Ten. Ben remembers ten so vividly that it could have been last summer instead of two decades ago. He remembers the strangeness of the Omnitrix, the euphoria of turning into aliens. He remembers fighting with Gwen, eating Grandpa’s gross food, and the rolling and rocking of the first Rust Bucket. Fuck, he’d been so young, barely older than Kenny.

Maybe in the morning they can pick up donuts from that fancy shop Kai and Kenny like that puts cookies and gummy worms on top of the icing. A bright and early birthday present to make it up to them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Have a nice day! :D


End file.
